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On the May 5-6 weekend we raced the second national race, this time at the track in Genk, Belgium. Since this club is a member of our Dutch national organization they can host a national race, so it was nice to race at a different track.

We arrived at the track on Friday to do some testing, but unfortunately the traction was really low and there was not much use to change the car settings. In the afternoon the traction came up a little and we did some pretty good lap times with the RX8.

Saturday was rained out so I prepared the car for the race on Sunday.

When we arrived at the track on Sunday the track was dry, but just before the qualifiers started it started to rain. I quickly converted to a rain set-up and put on the radioplate which had sealed electronics. In the first qualifier I made a few mistakes because it was too dry for full wet tyres and too wet for intermediate wet tyres.

In the second qualifier it was raining more and my receiver stopped working, so for the third qualifier I mounted a new one and sealed it better. I also changed the car a little and then it was very good in the rain so I took TQ by 4 seconds over John Ermen (also driving an XRAY RX8).

In the afternoon the track dried out, and I decided not to do a tyre stop. At the start I had no traction and went very wide, allowing John to take 1st place. I just followed John until the pit stop because my car was a little difficult with very big tyres and John was running on smaller tyres because he was going to change tyres half way. I went in for fuel first and after a few laps John also refueled but his engine stalled due to a broken glowplug, so I had a 2-lap advantage. From that point I took it very easy and we make some extra stops to tune the engine and check the tyres. In the end, John recovered and took 2nd place but 1.5 laps behind me.


Qualifying:
1. Rick Vrielijnck XRAY RX8
2. John Ermen XRAY RX8

3. Arie Manten
4. Michiel Renting


Final:
1. Rick Vrielijnck XRAY RX8
2. John Ermen XRAY RX8

3. Michiel Renting

Thanks to my mechanic Herman and to all my sponsors: XRAY, HUDY, Novarossi, Runnertime, Enneti, Sanwa, LRP, KM, CRIS Design.


Rick Vrielijnck